Comedy may be the way to go in Canadian television, according to recent Nielsen Media Research numbers, which show slight audience increases for homegrown comedy, while the few remaining Canadian dramas struggle to attract viewers.

When the second season of CTV drama The Eleventh Hour premiered Feb. 15 to 741,000 viewers (2+) – an 83% jump from last year’s premiere – it looked like efforts to sex-up the drama might be working. But by the time the second episode aired Feb. 22, the show had lost more than 100,000 viewers, dropping to 580,000, still higher than last year’s average of 369,000.

With the March ’03 funding application deadline looming, ratings for the first episodes will play a key factor in determining whether Eleventh Hour, one of four remaining hour-long Canadian dramas, will be renewed for another season.

Meanwhile, CTV’s half-hour comedy Corner Gas has attracted over a million viewers for five weeks running. On Wednesday, Feb. 11, the show attracted 1.22 million viewers, with 1.28 million tuning in the following week.

In Quebec, comedy is also cooking, with a new half-hour sitcom on Radio-Canada attracting more than two million viewers after just five weeks on air, more evidence that feature films are not the only genre in which French-language production dominates English.

Les Bougons (The Grumblers), a series about a family of scam artists living in Montreal’s downtrodden East End, premiered Jan. 7 to 1.8 million viewers, and its audience has continued to grow. On Feb. 18, the fifth episode of Bougons attracted, 2.3 million, up more than 100,000 from the previous week.

Snakes and Ladders, the new drama from Halifax-based Big Motion Pictures, premiered on CBC Feb. 11 to 408,000 viewers, but dropped to 310,000 for the second episode. This is Wonderland, also added to the pubcaster’s lineup this year, aired to 480,000 viewers Feb. 16, up only slightly from 450,000 the previous week.

Meanwhile, ratings for CBC comedies Rick Mercer’s Monday Report and The Newsroom jumped by almost 200,000 viewers each on Feb 16. Mercer’s show attracted 906,000 viewers on Feb. 16, up from 720,000 the previous week, and The Newsroom jumped from 240,000 on Feb. 9 to 422,000 a week later.